


I Have Gone Marking the Atlas of Your Body With Crosses of Fire

by Elpie (Horribibble)



Series: Bullen Week Prompts [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftercare, Bullen Week, Dom Cullen Rutherford, Fluff, Iron Lion, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Sub Iron Bull, Tal-Vashoth Iron Bull
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:42:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5280626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horribibble/pseuds/Elpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bull quickly memorizes the span of Cullen’s hand, heel, palm, and fingers. He knows the slightest movement of Cullen’s shoulders, the bob of his throat, the curve of his lip. He categorizes the information by instinct, things that indicate <em>stop</em> and <em>go</em> and with me. </p><p>He realizes, over time, that Cullen has memorized him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have Gone Marking the Atlas of Your Body With Crosses of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is in the same universe as They Move On Tracks of Never-Ending Light, and can definitely be considered a follow-up. 
> 
> For prompt #2 from Bullen Week : Aftercare. 
> 
> The title was volunteered by Malapropian, and comes from a Pablo Neruda poem.

Bull quickly memorizes the span of Cullen’s hand, heel, palm, and fingers. He knows the slightest movement of Cullen’s shoulders, the bob of his throat, the curve of his lip. He categorizes the information by instinct, things that indicate _stop_ and _go_ and _with me._

He realizes, over time, that Cullen has memorized him back.

He sees how Bull watches and learns, and he makes allowances for it.

But he won’t allow Bull to lie.

-

When Lavellan balks at the idea of striking Bull, Cullen takes the stick and strikes his back, a firm stripe between the shoulder blades.

He repeats the action again and again, urging Bull to let out his fears. His voice is a deep burr that Bull has only ever heard arranged carefully on the Commander’s bed.

The exercise has never gotten him _hard_ before, but glancing back at the imposing figure Cullen makes, Bull has a difficult time thinking about _Fear._

-

Bull has long been accustomed to taking care of others, in and out of bed. His training has left him with distinct advantages in predicting and meeting the needs of others to better serve his mission, and the demands of the Qun.

But now, here, there is no end goal, and he is the one who needs care.

Cullen exceeds his every expectation.

-

Bull surfaces to the sensation of strong fingers alternating between massaging the stiffness in his shoulders and scratching _just right_ over the planes of his back. His head rests in Cullen’s lap, carefully arranged so that his horns don’t butt up against anything important, and so his lover can lavish him with attention.

Those rough fingers are warm even in the cool air, moving up to trace Bull’s jaw, and the curve and point of an ear, and Bull rolls his shoulders, just a little. He presses his cheek tighter to the soft skin of Cullen’s thigh, sighing in the dim light.

“Are you with me again?” Cullen asks, fingers dipping to massage at the sore skin surrounding his empty eye socket, where the patch tends to rub a bit.

Bull trusts him with this, and he is rewarded. “Yeah. ‘m here.”

“You did very well, Bull.”

“Mm.” He doesn’t move his head, just breathes in the smell of Cullen, of them, of the cotton sheets and the torches flickering in their brackets. He focuses on the rumble of Cullen’s voice in his body, of his fingers on scarred skin.

“You’re safe, Bull. You’re here with me.”

With his free hand, Cullen raises a cup to Bull’s lips, and he lifts his head to drink before settling back down.

He is safe. He is with Cullen.

He is centered inside himself.

-

“Cullen,” Bull says.

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to say it.”

“That’s well enough, then.” Cullen chuckles, and presses a biting kiss against Bull’s shoulder. “Are you sore anywhere?”

“Nah. Just give us a cuddle.”

“I live to serve, of course.”

-

Over time, Bull learns to breathe with the cadence of Cullen’s voice.

He doesn’t pay close attention to the words, and if he did, they wouldn’t make sense.

He listens as Cullen recites,

_Beware ye well, my son and belle, beware ye well the calling. For you will face, with time and grace, our failing and our falling…_

Even at their most gruesome, Fereldan children’s tales are more vibrant and warm than the ones he heard as an imekari. He finds he prefers them, at least as Cullen’s voice dips into a deeper brogue, and his thumb brushes at the base of Bull’s horn.

He asks, “Are you sleeping, love?”

And Bull knows, _I am safe._

-

Bull notices, slowly, the way that Cullen breathes deep when Bull places a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t balk when Bull questions him about the reports he’s gone through, or the various inane issues that have arisen over the course of the day.

He massages Cullen’s shoulders and presses a kiss to the top of his hair, tacky as it is with product in the middle of the day, and he can hear the smile in the other man’s voice.

“You take such good care of me, you know?”

“Could say the same about you.”

“I suppose that makes us even, doesn’t it, Bull?”

“Jury’s still out on that one.” He answers, but his smile is a secretive one. A new one, that does not belong at all to Hissrad.

 _The Iron Bull_ as an independent self is something entirely new.

An individual, a friend, a lover and, as Cullen breathes it into the world, a name.


End file.
